Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system wireless communication, and more particularly to information handling system dynamic antenna management.
Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Portable information handling systems generally have processing components, input/output (I/O) devices, and power sources integrated into housings sized to provide users with mobility. For example, a typical tablet information handling system has a planar housing with a touchscreen display disposed on one side that both presents information and accepts touch inputs. Other more powerful portable information handling systems trade some mobility for increased processing capability by increasing the size of the housing to have additional room for processing components and thermal management. For example, portable information handling systems with a clamshell configuration typically include a physical keyboard and a rotationally coupled lid that houses a display for presenting information as visual images. End users thus have a variety of options when selecting portable information handling systems to balance mobility and performance.
One advantage of portable information handling systems is that mobile operations are available without hardwired connections to power, network and peripheral resources. For example, a user can run a portable information handling system on battery power and then interact with an integrated keyboard and display free from any cabled connections. Wireless networking further enhances portable information handling system mobility by allowing a user to interact with network resources without a networking cable. For example, standardized wireless local area networks (WLAN) and wireless wide area networks (WWAN) allow a user to have a cable-free portable information handling system with communication bandwidth substantially equal to cabled bandwidth. Further, standardized wireless personal area network (WPAN) interfaces, such as Bluetooth and 60 GHz communication protocols, allow a user to interact with larger and more convenient peripheral devices without a cabled connection. For example, a tablet information handling system that uses a relatively small touchscreen as both an input and output device becomes the equivalent of a desktop system by wirelessly interfacing with a peripheral keyboard and peripheral display. Thus, a low-profile portable device provides a user with ready access to a portable and cable-free office wirelessly interconnected to local peripheral devices and remote network resources.
Although wireless communication works well in the proper environment, users often need wireless connectivity under less-than-ideal conditions, such as where wireless signals are weak. In order to effectively receive and transmit wireless signals, portable information handling systems have to include antennae sized and tuned for the signal wavelengths. Thin mobile information handling system platforms and narrow display borders have forced antenna locations that lie in close proximity to end user input devices, such as along the edge of a touchscreen. End user contact or proximity to an antenna structure tends to impact loading through reactive near field effects, thus degrading impedance matching between the antenna and radio circuitry. Degrade impedance matching reduces antenna efficiency, resulting in poor signal transmission and reception as antenna resonance shifts and antenna bandwidth narrows. In some cases, radio circuitry can increase transmission power to make up for degraded antenna efficiency, however this impacts power consumption and battery life. In addition, radiation restrictions limit transmission power increases when human body parts are next to an antenna, such as the specific absorption requirements (SAR).